MPs Turn Up Pressure on MoD to Ditch King’s Guards’ Bear Fur

MPs Turn Up Pressure on MoD to Ditch King’s Guards’ Bear Fur

London – As MPs return to Westminster following the summer recess, nearly 20 cross-party parliamentarians, including Rachael Maskell MP, Hannah Spencer MP, and Ian Sollom MP, have written a letter (available here) to Luke Pollard, Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, demanding that he replace the bearskins used for the caps worn by the King’s Guard with faux fur.

“The Government’s continued use of real bearskin is impossible to justify,” the letter reads. “We call on you to instruct the Ministry of Defence and its suppliers to work proactively with manufacturers to develop and adopt a suitable faux fur alternative, in line with the Government’s commitment to advancing animal welfare.”

The ministry purchases finished caps from capmakers who source bear fur from Canada, where the government issues “hunting tags” allowing hunters to kill an allotted number of bears and sell their pelts. The continued use of bear fur for the caps creates a market for pelts and incentivises hunters to kill bears. A 2024 PETA video exposé revealed that hunters in Canada often bait bears with buckets of sweet food before shooting them with high-powered crossbows, a form of hunting illegal in the UK under wildlife protection laws. Many bears are shot several times, and some escape only to die slowly from blood loss, gangrene, starvation, or dehydration.

“MPs and peers from across Parliament are making it clear that the Government’s continued use of real bear fur has no place in modern Britain,” says PETA Vice President of Programmes Elisa Allen. “Every bearskin cap represents a bear’s violent death. The MoD must urgently dedicate its resources to finding a faux fur and end the UK’s support for the slaughter of wildlife overseas.”

 Earlier this year, MPs gathered outside the Houses of Parliament with a banner reading, “Bears Killed for the King’s Guard’s Caps. MoD: Go Fur Free” after records showed a sharp increase in the number of fur caps purchased by the MoD. Images from the action are available here.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – notes that, according to a poll carried out by Populus, 75% of the UK public considers the bearskin caps a “bad use of Government funds.” For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on X, Facebook, or Instagram. 

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327; [email protected]

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